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Machinations of the Space Princess

So, let’s talk a little about my Lamentations of the Flame Princess IndieGoGo, being organised by James Raggi. My project is Machinations of the Space Princess and the blurb goes a little like this:

Another time. A distant galaxy. The Orlathian Empire holds utter dominion over the known universe. Rich beyond dreams, corrupt beyond nightmares, decadent and cruel beyond measure. Princess Madan Kaana of the House of Diamonds maintains a private, little pleasure asteroid, deep in the Scyllan Abyss where she brings her playthings to fight, die and mate for her amusement. You are those playthings. This is your time to die. Can you escape the Machinations of the Space Princess?

This doesn’t tell you a massive amount other than that this is going to explicitly be a Sci-Fantasy adventure. I want to take it a bit beyond that however. While it will be usable as a space-based adventure/dungeon I want – within the word-count to sketch out inspiration and ideas for people to use it as a springboard into their own wild and crazy sci-fantasy adventures. I want to provide the tools and inspiration for people to take off. I’ll mention things but won’t go into huge detail, the Orlanthians, robotics, the noble houses, aliens and creatures, everything needed to launch a wild and crazy space-spanning game in the spirit of Lamentations.

The adventure will be written as an escape from this space-based prison but there’ll be enough detail there to use it as a location, to freeform within the space, to use it in context or to play it from the other ‘side’.

My inspiration is Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal. A magazine of science fiction and fantasy with a much more adult spin to its writing and imagery than much of what we otherwise have. It’s long been an ambition of mine to produce genuinely adult oriented material for games and I have frequently been frustrated that the only means to examine these aspects is through humour. People get giggly and sophomoric (or outraged) – or will only accept giggly and sophomoric materials on these subjects and I think that’s a pity. I won’t use the space to preach about this but it’s an opportunity to test the waters and to treat the audience as adults, for once.

I had the opportunity to pick anyone I wanted to work with on this project and I chose Satine Phoenix. I wanted to work with Satine on another adult project that ended up being delayed due to problems with Paypal and CC processors.

I felt very much that I had let her down by allowing that project to be delayed and I wanted to make it up to her. I also know how hard it can be to change careers and thought that I might, in some small way, be able to help. Above all of that, however, is the simple fact that I like Satine’s art. Her clean lines and stylised figures are reminiscent of Don Bluth’s style and I like the tension between the cartoonish style and the form of the content is perfect for the feel of the project I want to produce.

You’ll get an adventure, you’ll get great art, you’ll get a springboard and toolkit for your own campaigns and adventures and you’ll help two people do the kind of stuff they’ve always wanted to do. Like my own project the amount of money involved not only guarantees Raggi’s eye for quality but the time for both me and Satine to do the best possible job and to have enough time to make it truly great.